IPTA’s Inter Collegiate Drama Competition scores 50, marches on Was it the first or was it the second? Was it 1972 or 1973? My introduction to the annual competition is nevertheless at least 49 years old. I had just finished college, and could not participate. How I wished I could! But I could watch the event, and, soon afterwards, write about it, extensively, in several publications, as a theatre critic. If memory serves me right, back then, it was called IPTA’s Inter Collegiate ...

Aakhri Shama completes 50 years; film actor Kanwaljit Singh plays Ghalib Nostalgia that tugged at the very core of your heart surfaced on 16 February 2019 at the Rang Sharda auditorium, where I witnessed a show of the play Aakhri Shama (Last Candle), staged by the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA)’s Mumbai unit. With this show, the play completed a mind-boggling 50 years, having been first staged at the Red Fort, Delhi’s Deevaan-e-Aam (public hall), in 1969. That wa...

@ Farooque Sheikh: Memories and Musings on his 70th birth anniversary-II Ramesh Talwar on Farooque Shaikh Director Ramesh Talwar, who directed films (Doosara Aadmi, Sahiban, +5) and plays (Apan To Bhai Aise Hain, Darinde and many, many more), directed Farooque when he was still a student at Xavier’s. Talwar had studied at Khalsa College but had already earned a reputation as a man of great merit. Farooque invited him to direct Dekh Kabira Roya (about one boy and three girls) and Mirza S...